Chang'an 26 BCE : an Augustan Age in China / edited by Michael Nylan and Griet Vankeerberghen ; with the kind assistance of Michael Loewe.

"A Samuel and Althea Stroum book".

Includes bibliographies and index.

"The northern Chinese city of Chang'an, located near today's Xi'an, was the capital of multiple dynasties. At its zenith during the Western Han dynasty, before an interregnum period divided the dynasty into the Western/Former Han (202 BCE-9 CE) and Eastern/Later Han (25-220 CE), Chang'an was nearly three times the size of Rome and nearly four times larger than Alexandria. Although thousands of studies document imperial Rome's glory, no book-length work in a Western language is devoted to Chang'an, even though the two cities had comparable numbers of capital residents and imperial subjects and comparably vast territories. Chang'an 26 BCE addresses this deficiency, using the reign period of Emperor Chengdi (r. 33-7 BCE) and the year in which the Imperial Library Project began (26 BCE) as a focal point. Such a volume is possible now through correlation of archaeological and literary records relating to several decades in the capital region, when the Western Han capital flourished brilliantly before it was partially razed in 23 CE. This first in-depth survey by some of the world's best scholars, Chinese and Western, builds a case for the need to revise historical assumptions about the two Han dynasties"--Provided by publisher.

Editorial note --

Chronology of dynasties and Han reign periods -- Introduction / Michael NYLAN -- Part 1. The Built Environment and Archaeology of Han Chang'an. 1. The evolution of imperial urban form in Western Han Chang'an / TANG Xiaofeng ; 2. Chang'an and Rome : structural parallels and the logics of urban form / Carlos F. NOREÑA ; 3. Supplying the capital with water and food / Michael NYLAN ; 4. Mural tombs in late Western Han Chang'an / Arlen LIAN ; 5. Chang'an's funerary culture and the core Han culture / HUANG Yijun ; 6. The residential wards of Western Han Chang'an / ZHANG Jihai ; 7. The tombs built for Han Chengdi and migrations of the population / Michael LOEWE -- Part 2. Sociopolitical Transformations in late Western Han. 8. Chengdi's reign : problems and controversies / Michael LOEWE ; 9. Recasting the imperial court in late Western Han : rank, duty, and alliances during institutional change / Luke HABBERSTAD ; 10. The suburban sacrifice reforms and the evolution of the imperial sacrifices / TIAN Tian ; 11. Calendrical computation numbers and Han dynasty politics : a study of Gu Yong's Three Troubles theory / LIU Tseng-kuei ; 12. The politics of omenology in Chengdi's reign / Shao-yun YANG ; 13. Pining for the West : Chang'an in the life of kings and their families during Chengdi's reign / Griet VANKEERBERGHEN -- Part 3. Leading Figures in Late Western Han. 14. Liu Xiang and Liu Xin / Michael LOEWE ; 15. A fu by Liu Xin on his travels in Shanxi and Inner Mongolia / David R. KNECHTGES ; 16. Yang Yun's biography, his outlook, and his poem / Jurij L. KROLL ; 17. Looking backward : the rise of medical tradition in the Han period / Miranda BROWN ; 18. The social roles of the annals classic in late Western Han / Mark CSIKSZENTMIHALYI ; 19. The late Western Han historian Chu Shaosun / Hans VAN ESS -- Afterword: New perspectives and avenues for future research / Michael NYLAN.

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